Express & Star

Love conquered 41-year age gap for Stourbridge family

They said it would never last. When John and Rumana Edwards fell in love critics claimed the 41-year age gap was too large for the romance to survive – that coupled with the fact that the 19-year-old had never before left her village in Bangladesh.

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But the pair have proved everyone wrong with more than two decades of marriage now under their belt and a 21-year-old daughter.

The romance started in 1992 and ironically it was one girl's fear of marriage – an arranged marriage that is – that led to John, now aged 82, from Stourbridge to Bangladesh.

The couple's daughter Zara, now aged 21, with her father John

The retired West Midlands Police inspector and cartoonist had painted a couple of murals for one of his favourite Indian restaurants in Quinton free of charge.

But when the owner's daughter pulled out of a family trip to Bangladesh, out of fear of being married off, John was invited along instead to say thank you.

It was there in the Sylhet district that the then 60-year-old met Rumana, 19.

John said: "I don't think many people there had seen a white man before.

"They looked at me like I had come from the moon. I was made welcome where Rumana lived because she had an English speaking relative."

Rumana herself could not speak English, so when John returned to Stourbridge the relationship continued through letters, which the local English teacher in Sylhet had to write and translate for her.

A year later and the former police inspector returned to Bangladesh to wed Rumana despite opposition from her family, who did not like the fact he was British and older than her.

The fact she had been promised to another man was another complication.

Rumana said: "No-one from my family came to the wedding, they didn't like the idea of us being together mainly because of the age difference.

"It took my dad a long, long time to come around to it.

"He wasn't sure. John had to send him references from people explaining he was a good man and so on."

Former Police inspector John Edwards, who is also a keen artist

But the couple's problems did not end there.

Officials would not let Rumana back to England so John was forced to fly back alone.

During the next few months he had to disprove suggestions that he had been paid to marry a Bangladeshi girl just to get her in the country.

John recalled one immigration lawyer in Birmingham telling him 'The problem is you are English and she is from Bangladesh'.

But finally, the arrangements were made and in 1993 Rumana, who still could not speak English, took a 10-hour flight from her homeland to the UK – despite the fact she had never left her village before.

And John said there could still have been problems with immigration – had it not been for the intervention of an Express & Star photographer who was at Heathrow Airport with John for the big reunion.

He said: "If it hadn't of been for your photographer I don't think they would have let Rumana in.

"Some self-important immigration officer asked me to go upstairs and I was sitting there getting grilled when she asked me 'What do you want to marry her for?', I was really angry."

Thankfully, at that moment, a police officer who had been speaking to our snapper about the situation interrupted and asked the woman to hurry things along so the picture could be taken.

Rumana was subsequently allowed into the country. She said she found life in Worcester Street, Stourbridge, difficult in the early weeks, and that not speaking the language made her feel very isolated and alone.

But all that changed when the couple celebrated the birth of their daughter Zara at Wordsley Hospital a few months later. Rumana said that, despite never having seen a nappy before – it was throwing herself into motherhood that gave her new strength.

She said: "I had never left my village before and was very homesick at first. I cried every day, but when Zara came along I held her as a baby in my arms and that was it then.

"I thought, 'I haven't got time to cry anymore, I can't just think about myself'."

She said the age difference between the two, which is now equal to her 41 years of age, has never been an issue.

She said: "We never really think about it. John was always very open about it from the start," said Rumana.

"We have faced difficult times, especially in the beginning, but we have had a very happy life together and with Zara."

In 1999 the family moved from Stourbridge to Bangladesh for three years, although they were living in an English community far departed from Sylhet.

They returned to Britain in 2002, this time to Kidderminster, and then moved again two years later to the other side of Worcestershire and the hilly surrounds of Malvern to enable Zara to go to private school on a music scholarship.

Now Zara, 21, a soprano, is currently studying music at Bath University and is an active fundraiser for sick and injured police officers.

  • Zara’s next charity classical music concert, alongside other soloists, instrumentalists and the West Mercia Police band, will take place this Saturday at Malvern Priory. It is in aid of the Flint House Rehabilitation Centre, Goring-on-Thames. Tickets are £12 and are available on 01684 568415.

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